The Monster and the Girl

This Paramount film has the kind of outlandish plot often found in minor studio cheapies of the same period: Phillip Terry's sister (Ellen Drew) foolishly falls for a gangster and ends up sold into "white slavery." Her brother tries to rescue her but ends up getting framed for murder by the mobsters. Convicted and sent to die in the electric chair, his body ends up stolen by mad scientist George Zucco, who puts his brain in the body of a gorilla. The gorilla now with Phillip Terrys brain, escapes and proceeds to kill off the mobsters one by one. Along the way his dog instinctively knows the gorilla is his (hers?) old master and tags along on his murderous rampage of vengeance. If one view this film ignoring the outlandish plot, this actually a very well made film with good Paramount production values, good stylish direction by Stuart Heisler, good atmospheric photography, and good performances by most of the films cast. Charlie Gemora's gorilla costume is more realistic looking than the cheesy moth eaten suits worn by George Barrows or Ray Corrigan in minor studio pictures. Also Gemora manages express real feelings and emotions underneath that gorilla suit. Also Gemora's gorilla actually walks and gestures like a real gorilla. THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL is an incredible film and is recommend if you are looking for something really outlandish but not trashy.

This one's weird in the best way. Starts off like some kind of urban drama about a small town girl (Ellen Drew) who comes to the big city and, as often happens in films, finds herself forced into prostitution. Her brother (Phillip Terry) comes to the city to rescue her and winds up framed for murder. This was all interesting enough but the movie really kicks into high gear when it becomes a horror movie as "mad" scientist George Zucco transplants Drew's brother's brain into the body of an ape. The ape brother then seeks revenge against the men who turned his sister into a hooker and framed him for murder.

Really good cast for this little B gem. George Zucco is always worth the price of admission but you also have Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, Robert Paige, Onslow Stevens, Marc Lawrence, and Gerald Mohr! Also Edward Van Sloan in an uncredited part as the warden. This is a pretty amazing lineup for a little-known B horror flick. The bad guys are so completely rotten you can't wait to see them get theirs from the killer ape. Speaking of killer apes, that's often a particularly anemic subgenre of horror. This one's exceptional of its kind. The ape suit is really good. Just compare it to "The Ape" or "The Ape Man," made from around the same time, and you'll see what I mean.

Seedy subject matter mixed with fun horror staples -- the mad scientist and the guy in an ape suit. Very cool stuff. If you're a fan of old school B horror and gangster pictures you should like this one a lot.

After the horror revival of the late thirties, Paramount decided to get in on the act with this rare excursion into "monster movies." But this is a weird hybrid, as if a film about a white slavery ring was in production and the powers that be decided to tear off the last half of the script and graft a ham-fisted (or banana-fisted) monster subplot onto it. It certainly makes for fascinating viewing, as long as you know what's coming. A tenuous similarity could be considered with 'From Dusk Til Dawn' wherein a story about two hostage-taking killers on the run suddenly switches gears half-way and becomes an outlandish vampire gore-a-thon. This 1941 release does have a resemblance to Karloff's 1939 'The Man They Could Not Hang' (Karloff a hanged scientist brought back to life with electricity proceeds to kill off the jurors that convicted him.) Nonetheless, this film's bifurcated storyline is almost delightful if only from the sheer crackpot audacity of trying to pull it off.

No need to recount the plot, it's simple enough. It's thirty minutes of trial and flashback to the white slavery set-up, then thirty minutes of Frankenstein-ian ape-crazed nonsense with a quick wrap up. The only hurdle to overcome is the amateur performance of Phillip Terry as the condemned man Webster. He drudges his way through as if told he was in a zombie movie, then behaves like a Stepford Wife in the flashback, then later does an over-the-top hysteria jag in his last scene. Inept. But he doesn't play the ape, thank goodness! That job is performed by Charles Gemora (who played the martian in 1953's 'War of The Worlds') and he does it subtly and effectively. Considering the highly-charged second half, it's too bad the writer and director didn't take advantage and really play up the tension and the murder scenes. Here's a case where a film could have run a little longer for a change. And thankfully the ape doesn't talk and Webster's sister (Ellen Drew) doesn't do that "I recognized him by his eyes" nonsense that it looks like it was heading for. There's also a terrific cast of familiar second-tier actor faces employed including Marc Lawrence, a young Rod Cameron, Joseph Calleia, Abner Biberman, Cliff Edwards and even Bud Jamison (Jamison familiar to Three Stooges fans). Granted the film's short running time doesn't give them much screen time (but oddly enough, the faceless unknowns Robert Paige, Terry and Drew get most of the camera-time). And one last enjoyable note is seeing George Zucco as the transplant doctor hovering throughout the film. In the first part of the film he is just hanging around, given little attention, as if waiting like the rest of us to get to the 'monster' part of the story. Then after he does his movie-changing brain transplant, he once again hangs around mostly in the background (at each murder scene), with no one really asking him why he's always there. It's all part of the oddness of this little curio.

This is one of those films that I was only familiar with up till now via a still in Alan Frank's 1977 exhaustive and entertaining chronicle of the genre, "Horror Films"; a belated Paramount genre entry that was most notable for its unusual mix of noir (the white slavery angle in the first half) and horror (the "gorilla on the loose" segment in the second). The atmosphere (courtesy of Oscar-winning cinematographer Victor Milner) is congenial to both styles but, being just 65 minutes in length, the film kind of crams everything in without giving the disparate elements a chance to breathe! The essential silliness of the plot – a wrongly executed man seeking revenge when revived in an ape's body – brings up several questions in a discriminating viewer like yours truly: how could he have known the addresses of the various culprits, having only been in town for just a few days, and how come the gorilla is never noticed moving about (but then this fault is also borne by Poe's "Murders In the Rue Morgue"!)?; incidentally, the devotion of the hero's pet mutt to its former master – even when reduced to its own, i.e. animal, level – is most poignant. Anyhow, the whole is quite redeemed by a decidedly remarkable cast of stalwarts from both genres: Ellen Drew from ISLE OF THE DEAD (1945), George Zucco as the obligatory mad scientist, Edward Van Sloan in an uncredited bit as a prison warden, Tom Dugan as wisecracking cop, and especially the rogues' gallery: Robert Paige from SON OF Dracula (1943), Paul Lukas as the suave head villain, our very own Joseph Calleia (in one of his rare genre appearances) as a pastor-cum-hit-man(!), Marc Lawrence, Gerald Mohr and Onslow Stevens! In conclusion, the film under review is not to be confused with the later (and superior) THE LADY AND THE MONSTER (1944) which, as it happened, I watched in quick succession myself.

Monster and the Girl, The (1941)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Strange but effective film from Paramount mixes the noir and horror genres. Mobsters frame an innocent man for murder but before his execution he swears vengeance on them all. After his death a scientist (George Zucco) experiments by putting the dead man's brain into the body of a gorilla who goes out for revenge. The biggest problem with this film is its short running time of 65-minutes, which isn't enough time for the two stories to work. We get a fast paced and fun movie but it could and should have been a lot more. This is certainly a very weird film that noir and horror fans should check out.